At least I don't need to use sea urchin spines

Dr Jack Shephard (of lost):

"Veins are like a wet noodle. First you have to find one. Then you have to pierce it with a hollow needle."

After a week of trying today I was finally able to get the needle in my vain and have it stay there. In my opinion even better than the nurses have been doing because I didn't even feel it at all. They said there would be some give but I didn't even notice. I didn't know it was in until I saw the blood coming up the line.

This time I wasn't startled and the needle stayed in. What a relief. It's diffidently not as easy as the nurses at the blood clinic make it look, just finding the vein and then stabbing effortlessly in, oh no sir they move and wiggle and just as the quote above suggests, veins are like wet noodles. Luckily though I have needles that are are bit more advanced than a sea urchin's spine.

The next leap of course is repeating what I have now done, but also removing the needle on my own. Given that it is directly in a large vein with LOTS of blood coursing through it every second, pressure needs to be applied to it almost immediately or else there shall be a geyser of blood coming out of my arm.

Pressure needs to be held to each hole after removing the needle for at least 10 minutes. They also cannot be removed at the same time. I remove one, hold it for 10 minutes, and then remove the other and repeat the 10 minutes. The problem lays in that my fistula is in my upper arm so I can only reach it with one hand, so while the nurses can use both hands, one to remove and one to apply pressure, I can only use one.

We'll see how this goes tomorrow

Owen